Satyajit Ray’s Detective Feluda Enters the World of Comics

Detective Feluda is here, Tintin-style. The iconic private eye – a character created by legendary filmmaker-writer Satyajit Ray in his Bengali whodunits – has entered the animated, colourful world of comic books.

Feluda alias Prodosh Kumar Mitter – who acquired cult following among young readers in West Bengal in the 1970s and 80s and later on screen – has been put together in comic book format by children’s writer Subhadra Sengupta and illustrator Tapas Guha, both of whom are based here.

Two of the first lot of five books, “Beware in the Graveyard” and “A Bagful of Mystery”, were published by Penguin Books-India this week and will be launched soon.

“In ‘A Bagful of Mystery’, detective Feluda’s client Dinanath Lahiri finds his bag replaced with an identical one on a train from Delhi to Kolkata. As Feluda comes in to investigate, the bag throws up complex mysteries. A rare manuscript or an artefact might have found its way into his bag,” said text-writer Sengupta, outlining the stories to IANS.

“Beware in the Graveyard” revolves around a rare watch, which lies in an old grave at the Park Street cemetery in Kolkata.”An antique watch dealer tries to steal it with the descendants of the dead man. The action packed search takes the private eye and his team through the streets of Kolkata,” Sengupta said.

Feluda and his team, of course, shed their 70s garb and language.

“I have given him a contemporary look. His clothes are 21st century and in some of the books – which I am working on – he also uses the cellphone. His nephew, Topesh, speaks like a modern-day teenager and the language is today’s. I was inspired by Satyajit Ray’s son Sandip Ray’s movies which had contemporised Feluda. But I did not touch the plots or the landmarks that he described in the book – though I have changed some locations to make it more visually appealing,” Sengupta said.

Read the entire article here. You can buy the books here and here.

Authors Subhadra Sengupta and illustrator Tapas Guha are also the same people behind our delightful History series.

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